Exotic Siren Song

Once I was a sailor, on a whaler, on the ocean
I left fiscal climbing just to feel some forward motion
I was sixteen; I knew nothing, but I was learning pretty fast
In the Orient, I jumped ship - living by my wits at last
I gambled my last wages in a bamboo-woken den
I lost my cherry to a [co-actor], in a minute I was spent
I hopped a freighter to Sri Lanka with a cache of rusty guns
I got the money, but they got funny, in the mainland on the run
I rode for seven weeks on horseback to Arabian-desert shores
And then I swapped that in Mackinac for drugs and treatment for my sores
I've damned my soul in desperation so my hopes get kinda used
And I drove up to the Lebanon to sell the diplomats their boose
They 'over the odds' for a stow-away ticket from the Mediterranean coast
And I swam to Greece with the captain's niece with one days food at most
And there we had our final argument I was in the wrong I know
But a hothead falls off its intelligence, so lovergirl had to go
I got the oven train, a bright overnight, 'til I got to Switzerland
Hitched a ride with a future suicide out selling krugerrands
His hand on my knee, I decided to leave; well we were in Amsterdam
Did the washing in a Chinese kitchen to pay my way back to my land
Well I'm telling you this because I've been around and now I know the ropes
Well I've plugged my hands in foreign lands learned while spurning all my hopes
Don't be lured by Exotic Siren Song and tell your girlfriend, too
It's too late to undo the damage, and nothing now is really new